In Italy, you’ll often hear people use the single word torcicollo to describe a crick in one’s neck or a stiff neck caused by an injury.
It is made up of two words: the verb torcere meaning to twist or to contort, and collo meaning neck.
Torcicollo is a masculine noun. The plural is torcicolli.
un torcicollo
il torcicollo
dei torcicolli
i torcicolli
If you want to say that you have a stiff neck, you can use the verbs avere (to have) and venire (to come).
Ho il torcicollo da tre giorni.
I’ve had a crick in my neck for three days.
Mi è venuto il torcicollo tre giorni fa.
I got a crick in my neck three days ago.
In zoology, torcicollo is also the name given to the wryneck, a kind of bird with the incredible ability to turn its head almost 180 degrees.
Heather Broster is a graduate with honours in linguistics from the University of Western Ontario. She is an aspiring polyglot, proficient in English and Italian, as well as Japanese, Welsh, and French to varying degrees of fluency. Originally from Toronto, Heather has resided in various countries, notably Italy for a period of six years. Her primary focus lies in the fields of language acquisition, education, and bilingual instruction.
